Freemasonry in India Is Growing

"Writer Dan Brown certainly created a flutter about Freemasons, but what's encouraging is that membership in India is growing while many other countries are losing members," says Balaram Biswakumar, neurologist and grand master, The Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons (AF & AM) of India.

"While fiction has played a role in this, a lot of our new masons are youngsters who have access to the Internet and have read about Freemasons and their charitable activities," he says. Kumar attributes the growth in membership to the conservative approach of selection adopted by the masons. Most new entrants have a familial masonic link.

IT professional S Ramasubramanian, who was initiated into Lodge Ramprasad in the city in January 2010, says he had some idea about masonry as his paternal uncle and cousins were part of the society. "The rituals were a bit of a surprise," he adds.

"Having said that, I must confess there is nothing scary about them. Like every religion has certain symbolic rituals so does freemasonry," says Ramasubramanian, a manager with Cognizant. Lodge Ramprasad has around 188 members, 15 of whom are in their thirties.

[snip]

Another 'brother',Harish Mohan, who joined freemasons at the age of 18 in 2003, has been a regular with his mother lodge, Om Vigneshwara. When he joined the freemasons 10 years ago, Om Vigneshwara's membership was 30. It has now doubled. Around 24 members of Om Vigneshwara are in the 20-40 age group. The entry age is 21, but it is relaxed to 18 for those whose fathers are members of lodges.

Mohan is associated with a project that provides solar power to villages across the country. He attributes the growth in membership to open sessions with families and the public at large by the Grand Lodge of India. "We are becoming more open. At Om Vigneshwara, we have two family meets every year," he says.

Masons get little time to learn about each other in the formal environs of the lodge, so members like Mahendra Jogani are trying to encourage social interaction through initiatives like the Freemasons Family Circle. The Freemasons Family Circle has 300 members in Chennai.

"This is an informal body, and is not affiliated to freemasonry. The whole objective is to provide a platform for family and social bonding," he says.

Thirty-nine-year-old Peeyush Sinha, also known as 'green mason', was drawn into the fold after hearing about the masons from friends abroad. The diamond trader joined the freemasons three months ago but says he has still not been exposed to all the rituals of the society.

"There were a lot of queries initially. They were clarified during the first two meetings. Discussions largely centre on societal change and it is very enriching," he says. Religion and politics are taboo subjects. Sinha belongs to Patel Fulchand Lodge, which has 30 members of whom he is the youngest.

No comments:

Post a Comment

ATTENTION!PLEASE sign or otherwise identify yourself in your comment posts. I have been FLOODED for months with spam comments, and I've been forced to laboriously screen every post now. Anonymous postings on Masonic topics have the same status as cowans and eavesdroppers as far as I am concerned, and may be deleted if I don't recognize you or if I'm in a grumpy mood.

A mythic past. A visionary future. A legendary brotherhood.

Freemasonry is the largest, oldest and best-known gentleman's fraternity in the world. Historically, it is based on the Medieval stonemason guilds who built the great castles and cathedrals of Europe. Mythologically it is founded upon the building of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, as told in the Old Testament of the Bible. Modern Freemasons likewise use the tools, traditions and terminology of those earlier stonemasons as allegories for building Temples in the hearts of men.

It's said that we are a secret society. We do indeed have secrets—secrets that each individual man has to discover for and about himself.

At its core, Freemasonry is simply an attempt to make the world a better place, one man at a time. For each man, it can become as simple or as complicated as he himself desires.

It's not for everybody.

Maybe it's for you.

"Brother Chris Hodapp's [blog]...is thought provoking and is often the first place on the web where new ideas and matters of interest are posted."

In 2018 Chris was awarded the Caleb B. Smith Medal of Honor by the Grand Lodge F&AM of Indiana for his "distinguished service to Freemasonry in Indiana and worldwide."

Chris Hodapp received his higher education at Indiana University, the University of Southern California, Los Angeles Valley College, California State University at Northridge, and Indiana/Purdue University at Indianapolis.

He spent twenty-three years in advertising as a commercial filmmaker for Dean Crow Productions, shooting and editing close to 1,000 regional and national commercials, music videos and feature films. He has written scripts for corporate and non-profit clients, and his voice has appeared in countless television and radio commercials.

He was the editor and a contributor in 2004-5 to "Laudable Pursuit: A 21st Century Response to Dwight Smith"by the Knights of the North, a Masonic leadership think-tank focussing on modern lodge solutions. He has written for Indianapolis Monthly, Masonic Magazine, Templar History, the Scottish Rite Journal, the Knight Templar Magazine, the Indiana Freemason , the Phylaxis, and numerous other publications.

Hodapp and Alice Von Kannon developed episode outlines for the History Channel program, Brad Meltzer's Decoded in 2010, and contributed material on conspiracies and secret societies for TruTV and the American Heroes Channel. They have both appeared on National Public Radio, the History Channel, Discovery, National Geographic, Smithsonian, and the American Heroes Channel - most recently in 2017 on America: Facts vs Fiction.

Chris and Alice live in Indianapolis with their very French poodle Wiley who has them both answering to basic commands.

M.A.T.S.O.L.

If you are a Freemason who travels anywhere, you need to download the Amity app to your smartphone. Immediately.

Instantly identify lodges in all mainstream and Prince Hall U.S. jurisdictions, Canada, and more than 50 other countries. Determine a lodge's Masonic regularity immediately, and whether your own grand lodge is in amity with theirs, all on your phone.Apart from my own books, I don't advertise products here as a rule, but this service is absolutely free of charge, created by and for Freemasons, and with the cooperation of grand lodges all around the world.

I am a Freemason and a member of both the regular, recognized Grand Lodge of Indiana F&AM and the United Grand Lodge of England. However, unless otherwise attributed, the opinions expressed in this blog are my own, or of others expressing theirs by posting comments. I do not in any way represent the official positions of my lodges or Grand Lodges, any associated organization of which I may or may not be a member, or the fraternity of Freemasonry as a whole.

Be aware that no one person may speak on behalf of Freemasonry or present their opinion as being the "official" position of the fraternity, unless it is a grand master, and then, only within his own jurisdiction. While Freemasonry is a global fraternal organization, there is no single, authoritative, administrative Masonic body or figurehead anywhere in the world.

The unauthorized appearance of content from this site, in whole or in part, in links, aggregators, forums, comments or other websites does not express or imply an endorsement by the author.

If you are a Freemason and are lifting material from this website without attribution, shame on you.

PRIVACY INFORMATION

The author of this site does not in any way collect any data whatsoever from readers or posters, does not share any reader information with other sites or advertisers, and does not make use of any data collected by any embedded resources. However, this site is hosted by Google's Blogger platform, and is subject to Google's terms of service, as well as their data collection policy.

Pancakes Served Since May 2010 (plus 2,291,385 more between 2006 and 2010)